Grief for a hero
Friday 6th November 2009, 9:51AM GMT.
Christina, third from left, the wife of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, watches as the coffin of her husband passes through Wootton Bassett.
As the hearse passed containing the body of her husband, bomb disposal expert Oz Schmid, his widow Christina mouthed “You have done really well” and began clapping.
It is not a traditional response to honouring the dead. We shall see that on Sunday with the silence through which we remember and pay respect to the fallen.
But grief comes in many forms and manifestations, and Mrs Schmid’s tribute symbolises in its own way the feelings of Britons as we fight this 21st century war.
We are proud and applaud those out there fighting on our behalf.
Clapping was a widow’s act of defiance, a show of pride, love, and respect for her husband, but also a sign to his killers that she will not give them the satisfaction of a display of grief, which is of course the reaction they most want, as it brings with it pressure to bring the troops home.
However it is inevitable that as the casualty toll rises, so do the pressures. In America an Army major has gone berserk and murdered 12 colleagues. We do not know why. But it comes in the same week that five British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in not entirely dissimilar circumstances. Was that the “inspiration” for an act of evil?
Afghanistan is no longer a forgotten war.
What was true yesterday, is true today. The price of freedom and peace at home is paid with the lives of our fighting forces abroad.
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My total respect towards Christina Schmid and people like her.
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Oz Schmid was a hero. Christina Schmid is a hero too. I have honestly never seen such dignity and bravery as she showed that day.
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